Wednesday, June 29, 2016

This evening I'd like to take a trip to the UK (or perhaps England) with Bruce Hodder's poems.

THE JETS

We would always verbally abuse the Jets
when they walked into the Railway Club
on Thursday nights to watch the rock and roll.
“Wankers!” “Posers!” “Tossers!”
Every swear word we could think of
would come spewing from our teenage mouths.
It was because we turned invisible
to our girlfriends when the boys turned up.
Our scorn disguised our envy,
so we thought, of their great haircuts
and their clothes, the perfect Fifties cool
they had replicated in their rolling walks.
“Why don’t you go home to Northampton, twats!”
I shouted one night. I was drunk on beer
I had paid an older boy to buy me.
I was on my own, and there were three of them;
but I’d made sure they were out of earshot
and couldn’t hear. What I wanted really
was an autograph. I had a beer mat ready
in my pocket, but didn’t dare to take it out
when they came close, all I wasn’t.

--------------------------------------

Attribution: Louise Price

THE OLD TED AND ELVIS

The old Ted’s favourite thing to do

in summertime is open all his windows,

and play his only Elvis record loud;

then he takes a beer downstairs to perch

on the wall outside our flats to smoke.

The old Ted’s second love’s complaining.

The one thing in the world that’s right is Elvis.

All the rest is wrong. “It’s fucked,”

he told me. “Kids rob old men with hammers.”

(Crime on our estate was up.)

“Know why?”

“No, why?”

“We let the coloureds in.”

Upstairs, Elvis stole the blues

from black musicians’ breakfast tables

and sold it onto us as rock.

NB: Ted—Teddy Boy, 1950s rock and roll fans in the UK known for Edwardian frock coats and conservative political views.

---------------------------------------------------------

MUM AND RAVI SHANKAR

My father threatened

to divorce

my mum

if she brought

the new l.p.

by Ravi Shankar

“into my house”.

(O Mum,

one act

of bravery

one purchase

might have

done it!)

A dislike

of Indian ragas

is ok

--though philistine—

but the use

of “my”

in “my house”

was a warning.

-------------------------------------------------

Bruce Hodder is the editor of the New Beatnik, which is currently on sabbatical. He has been published in numerous magazines, online and in the anthology Other Voices (Crossroads Press).

Sunday, June 26, 2016

This evening I'd like to post a few pieces that Will Mayo has sent me over time. Enjoy!

You Never Know...

by

Will Mayo

Still, forty years ago, I had my palm read, lifeline and all, and the fortuneteller took one long look at my hand and said,

"This is something else," she said. "I haven't seen anything like this in a long time. And I've been in the business a good long while now."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Well, the way it breaks down," she said. "You could die young or you could die old but in between I see no action at all."

She paused. "If you could make it through the next few years I expect you'll be home free. But I worry about you just the same."

I paid my fee and left the tent, set on my way. And the years have passed, rough in their own way, I've come close to dying lots of times but I'm no longer a young man though not yet an old man albeit some kids might yet consider me old. The gods might smile on me yet. You just never know.

---------------

THE NIGHT

By

Will Mayo

There’s something about the night that gets in my blood, gets me going like no other time of the day can. It’s the fall of footsteps on a hardwood floor, creaky with age, of a soul trying vainly to wake up the dead (as if he could); it’s a night owl’s hoot at the passersby; it’s a lover’s sigh on a pillow left untended by time. And, oh, yes, it’s these, too: staying awake all night, cowering by a candle or a night lamp while held in suspense by the horror of a ghost story, told one last time; tossing and turning in a dream that transports one to a kingdom won and lost for the sake of a bride unencumbered by the serpent at the door; and, of course, waking up to a bleary-eyed dawn that only Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci could imagine in all its beauty. Damn it, I do love that night.

----------------------

THE HERMIT

By

Will Mayo

Close by the grove of the mangrove swamp,

the hermit lives.

He tidies his little hut

with rake and broom,

and waits,

for there is no one to speak to;

only the jungle speaks.

It is made for a journeyer.

You can find him

in the muddy dawn;

gathering snakes

for his noonday meal.

In the evening,

he sings to the moon,

his shriveled body dressed in rags

arching forward

past the kudzu of his hut.

He has never known a woman,

never has he dared.

He searches only for the One

who walks in swampy night

and speaks in silence

during the day.

And never on knees,

does he pray.

Only in mud and clay

of daily toil,

does he find his God.

And he listens

for that which he cannot hear.

-----------------------------------------------------

For A Room At The Inn

by

Will Mayo

Still I remember a moonlit night about 40 years ago in which, lost in a faraway town, I stopped in a police station and, catching sight of two officers on duty, I asked for a ride back to the local madhouse.

"Do you want to take him?" one cop asked the other.

"No, I don't want to take him," the other officer said. "Do you want to take him?"

"Oh, all right. I'll take him," the first cop said.

And, so, reluctantly, he gave me a ride to the hospital where, not knowing that I'd been gone, they debated for a while and then took me in.

Finding a bed for myself, I laid my head back and rested for a spell. I was not yet 15 years old and still finding my way in the world. And it was just another one of those days...

----------------------------

Picture In Front Of The Glass

by

Will Mayo

I like the slow time,

The time that wavers in front of the glass.

A moment spent

Staring at the page of a good book

Is like a month spent

In interludes forgotten.

A morning walk through the spring rain

Bears to a year lost in thought,

Time passing with no eye on the clock.

And a slow wakening from dream

Ticks time back into eons

As the muse gently whispers in my ear

And tells me of that which

I thought I might not remember.

And as I write these words

I stare in front of the glass.

It melts gently, so gently.

--------------------------------------------------

On Making A Career Move

by

Will Mayo

Yet the penning of stories and poems wasn't always a vocation to which I occupied my waking hours. In college, for instance, I thought what a nice career move it might be to be a nude artist's model. Gee, what could be better, I thought? I'd just sit or stand there nude in various positions while all about me others would be doing the actual work - and yet I'd be the one getting paid for it! It seemed the sure thing to do.

But when I got to the art professor's office (and long before there'd be any question of my disrobing), I panicked, hard to say why, maybe I thought that there'd be too strenuous labor involved (after all, it can be a pain to assume those positions for a prolonged time), and I uttered the quickest excuse I could think of to get me out of there fast. That is, I said:

"Is this where I can find the college literary journal?"

"Oh, no, no," she replied. "For that, you'd need to go to the English Department."

And so, gathering my wits (and much else), I hurried off to the literary journal, ready to make good on my excuse. It seems I've been writing ever since.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

This evening I'd like to return with Kerfe Roig's images and words inspired by Mayan and Mexican jaguar (tigre) masks. She states:What's interesting to me is how first the Spanish tried to eliminate the native peoples, then they enslaved them, taking away their lands and outlawing their culture, then they sent priests to indoctrinate them into Catholicism. And still. The ancient beliefs and traditions subverted the imported religion and exists today in a synthesis of the old and new. The persistence of masking and the spirits invoked in ritual and dance are evidence of the continuity and continued importance of indigenous culture in the life of Latin America.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Recently Angelee Deodhar took time to send me some of her collaborations with other authors as well as some of her own haiku. I know that you will enjoy them.

For the first two pieces, her co-author is Raveesh Varma (whom you met back in February when you read their "Snow Angels."

The next co-author is Thomas Canull.

Haibun :The echo

A collaborative haibun by Thomas Canull (USA) and Angelee Deodhar(India)

new grass--

a sparrow and I

just playing

-Issa

Mother's Day brings back fond memories of my grandmother whom I loved dearly as she and an aunt just 8 years old at the time raised me for at least the first year of my life. My birth mother rejected me at birth as she already had one child to care for. And no one on that side of the family would ever discuss it or tell me how long I was at grandmothers but she was always there for me as I grew up. Some summers I would to stay there for the summer and for me that was a taste of heaven.

Bio:Thomas Canull worked for several years as an intel-op in the far and middle east. While in Japan he fell in love with haiku. Several of his haiku have appeared in the Japanese online Asahi Haikuist Network.While in Arizona Thomas started posting a "Thought for the week" and a "Haiku for the week" at his neighborhood Starbucks. When he returned to Indiana ,he brought the idea back with him and has been posting at the same Starbucks for several years.

Thomas is also a Co-Founder of Hope 4 U Bracelet Ministries which is dedicated to uplifting of everyone he meets with a message of love and hope.

Below are Angelee's haiku sequences.

Haiku Sequence: Earthquake

as I brush
by

the
touch-me-not closes

- wedding
night

her
hennaed hands

between my
brown ones

the scent
of jasmine

lifting
her veil

first
glimpse of the moon

on her
nose ring

tinkle of
bangles

breaks the
night silence

as we sink
together

morning
dip

her sari
clings to her

my
heartbeats quicken

earthquake
–

petals
torn from a tree

flutter in
the wind

another
earth tremor

in a
street full of rubble

her glass
bangles

Haiku Sequence:
Ground Zero Revisited

breaking news

in the darkness

a tea cup shatters

flags aflutter

the still smoldering debris

- just another day

each passing hour

through broken windows

only the silence

memorial bouquets

the lilies beaten to stalks

in the downpour –

hand to hand

a flickering candle

this long night

a different landscape

through settling smoke

some more sky

During this unsettling time, I hope that these poets' work will speak to you. Music also speaks to us. Angelee chose these pieces. The first is Chopin's Marche Funebre.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

The British jazz poet Bryn Fortey reminds us how many musicians were born in the 1920s. Above is a picture of some cigar box guitars, the instrument that the subject of Bryn's poem was known for playing.

ELLAS McDANIEL

(1928 - 2008)

Ellas McDaniel would have laughed

At being lumped with the jazzers

He thought himself a rock ‘n’ roller

An entertainer

The man who invented rap

And the psychedelic guitar

The baddest cat alive: Bo Diddley

Rock ‘n’ roll – certainly

R&B – yes

But rooted in the Blues

(And where would Jazz be without them)

With a nod to the field hollers

That preceded it all

Ellas McDaniel: the boy violinist

Who tuned a guitar like a fiddle

And grew up to be Bo Diddley

Bryn Fortey

Nina Simone was not born in the 1920s, but recently I found a wonderful poem inspired by her "Blackbird." Holly Holt, the co-editor of Walking is Still Honest and the illustrator of Charles Clifford Brooks III's Athena Departs and The Salvation of Cowboy Blue Crawford, has written this poem.

“betrayed by summer”

inspired by
“Blackbird,” Nina Simone

you
believed happiness

was
the language

the
birds spoke

in
summer, where heat

mimicked
the pulse

of
memory

while
your ears

gathered
the silk

of
silence over your soul

we
were both born

in
stardust, you and I,

but
something lonely

crept
into you

from
the cradle:

an
inability to chase

dreams
and horizons,

to
light candles,

to
breathe hopes

and
call them home

words,
like a pebbled walkway

on
days filled with rain,

have contradicted
your peace

as
the hushed sound of stone

underfoot—a
heart’s beat,

sad,
alone, and afraid,

muted
by this hopeful season

every
year, your search

involves
only looking back

your
beliefs bring the certainty

that happiness
betrayed you,

the
blackbird whose sad beauty

will
never again grace the skies—

and summer
can only move on

without
you

----------------------------

I also want to add Holly's illustration of a haiku in Miriam Sagan and Michael G. Smith's sequence.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Recently Miriam Sagan and Michael G. Smith sent me their haiku sequence inspired by Handel's Water Music. I am pleased to see more haiku and more classical music here--and more work by Miriam and a new-to-the Song Is... writer.

As the temperatures rise, the riverside is a good place to be!

background
kettledrums

rolling
riverrock

blood
in the veins

ordered garden bedsa baroque scoretorn in spring wind

tasting the last

of last years’ dried apples

the tree blooms

snowflakes fallingover my lettuce planting hopesnotes pour allegro

a slow moment observed, lilacs opening without a
minute hand

edging off the eave, a raindrop takes its chance

that
long-gone cloud

left behind

a red rose

tea kettle whistlingwater’s metamorphosislike a recurring dream

an
escapee,

Inky
the Octopus

finds
the grail to the sea

take
my ashes

to
the Pacific

they
won’t dance alone

Kew Gardens—a lily pad big enough tofloat a baby on

hot spring pool along

the Gila’s bank

howling dog

sutra says “like a lotus from muddy water”—me

foraging along

the sacred Bagmati

gods and pigs

a melodyas Chinese elm seedsland as weeds

all air

Aquarius -

autumn rain predicted

crossingour dry river, a cascadeof feeling

Bowling Alley Rapids -

river otter makes

it look easy

a fountainplays catchwith sunlight

my snowball floats - sutra says “water and ice are the same”

sea level the cities of the futureat low tide

centuries of lake

ooze between

our boy toes

a fossil shellnow high onMt. Meru

Below is a link to a performance of Handel's Water Music on period instruments: